Insights
Practical writing from Chris Deavin, a personal trainer for over 50s in Reigate with nearly thirty years of coaching behind him. Strength training after 50, cardiovascular fitness, nutrition and recovery, explained the way they are coached day to day in the private personal training studio on Church Street.
Featured
Nearly everyone who walks into the Reigate studio describes tasks — train more, eat better. A clear picture of the person you intend to be at 70 makes the everyday decisions far easier.
Topics
Five themes that decide how strong, fit and capable you stay through your fifties, sixties and beyond. They are the same five things Chris works on with clients in the studio, one session at a time.
Behaviour & Consistency
Nearly everyone who walks into the Reigate studio describes tasks — train more, eat better. A clear picture of the person you intend to be at 70 makes the everyday decisions far easier.
Strength & Fitness
Strength training after 50 needs a deliberate relationship with discomfort — enough to drive adaptation, never so much that it costs you the next three sessions.
Behaviour & Consistency
For most people over 50 the constraint is implementation, not knowledge. Cutting the number of decisions usually does more for results than adding more detail.
Recovery & Stress
Sleep, stress and recovery decide how much of your training and nutrition actually turns into strength and energy after 50.
Healthy Ageing / CapabilitySpan
Adding years to your life counts for less than keeping the strength, fitness and movement to enjoy them. That is what CapabilitySpan measures.
Nutrition
Work, travel and long days do not make good nutrition impossible — they make improvised nutrition unreliable. A handful of defaults solves most of it.
Behaviour & Consistency
People over 50 rarely fail for lack of information. They struggle because nothing in the week is structured simply enough to be repeated. Here is the structure I use with clients in Reigate.
Healthy Ageing / CapabilitySpan
After 50, health stops being another demand on the diary and becomes the infrastructure everything else runs on. That change in framing changes the decisions you make.
Strength & Fitness
Physical capability after 50 is not purely muscular. Expectations, identity and your willingness to tolerate productive discomfort shape how consistently you train — and consistency is what builds strength.
Nutrition
After 50, nutrition stops being mostly about weight and becomes part of what holds up your strength, energy and recovery. Here is how to eat for capability rather than for the scales.
Behaviour & Consistency
Most people over 50 do not lack health knowledge. The gap is doing what you already know consistently, and that gap matters more with every passing year.
New pieces are added here as they are written. If a question you have is not covered yet, bring it to a Free Discovery Session and Chris will answer it in person.
From the newsletter
Chris also writes a newsletter. New pieces appear here automatically as they are published, and each one opens on Substack, where you can subscribe by email.
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Watch
Short, practical videos on training, movement and nutrition after 50. New uploads appear here automatically, and each one opens on YouTube.
17 September 2026
Your health plan could be failing because it doesn’t match who you believe you are. You can have a great diet. A great exercise programme. A perfectly designed health plan. But if the behaviours…
15 September 2026
Setting a health goal is easy. Being willing to do what is necessary to achieve it is what makes the difference. Whether you want to lose weight after 50, build strength, improve your fitness or…
15 September 2026
Your mindset can determine what happens when your health plan gets difficult. There are two very different ways you can approach improving your health. You can have a fixed and reactive mindset. Or…
14 September 2026
If you’re not prepared to work for your health, don’t be surprised when it starts to suffer. We all want to be strong. We want to be fit. We want a healthy weight, plenty of energy and a body that…
12 September 2026
You have more control over your health than you probably realise. You can’t control everything. You can’t change your genetics. You can’t prevent every illness or injury. And you can’t stop yourself…
11 September 2026
Hoping for better health isn’t the same as working for it. Most people over 50 want to be healthier. They hope they’ll lose some weight. They hope they’ll get fitter. They hope they’ll have more…
The Resilient Life
Chris’s podcast covers the same ground in conversation: training, nutrition, recovery, resilience and the practical side of staying capable after 50.
Episode
What if your best decades started after 60? Norman Calvo proves they can.
Episode
Welcome to The Resilient Life, the podcast for people who want to stay healthy, capable, and strong through every stage of life. I’m Chris Deavin, and in this show we explore the habits, mindset, and resilience it takes to keep performing at a high level, especially as we get older.
Episode
In this episode of The Resilient Life Podcast, Chris sits down with Kendra Kinnison for a candid conversation about balancing a demanding professional life with long-term health and well-being. Kendra shares how years of high stress, poor habits, and physical pain led her to make intentional changes that transformed the way she works, moves, and thinks about success.
Keep going
Ideas only matter once they change what you actually do in an ordinary week. The simplest next step is a face to face conversation in the studio, with no obligation attached.
A Free Discovery Session in the private personal training studio in Reigate, at a time that suits you.
Strength, cardiovascular fitness, nutrition and recovery, looked at honestly and without judgement.
Leave with one or two changes worth making, whether or not you go on to train with Chris.
Reigate Over 50 & Strong, 39-41 Church St, Reigate, RH2 0AD. 07788 651269 · reigatehealthclinic@gmail.com. Sessions are by appointment.